Worcester v Northampton: Teams
Chris Jones shifts to the back of Worcester's pack for Friday's home clash with Northampton Saints at Sixways.
Last Updated: 29/09/11 2:43pm
Worcester will be looking to end a four-match losing run on home soil against Northampton when the sides do battle on Friday night.
The Warriors have only won once in the last seven meetings of the teams at Sixways, although their opponents go into the game off the back of three straight defeats in the Aviva Premiership.
The hosts shift Chris Jones into the number eight shirt, the former Sale Shark taking over from the injured Kai Horstmann (hamstring).
Worcester head coach Richard Hill has selected Ed Shervington to play hooker alongside props Matt Mullan and Tevita Taumoepeau, who previously had a spell at Franklin's Gardens.
Lock Craig Gillies is joined in the second row by another former Northampton man, James Percival, while Oliver Tomaszczyk is named among the replacements for the first time this season.
There are also places on the bench for Adam Balding and Tom Arscott after the pair played for the Worcester Cavaliers at the start of the week.
"We're going to come across a very powerful Northampton side that is going to want to take us on at the scrum and line-out, take us on around the fringes with big forward runners," said Hill.
"We don't want to be drawn into that type of game so our three-quarter line have got to add flair and ambition to break the game up."
Bounce back
Northampton will be looking to find some form when they visit a venue that has been good to them in recent times.
And although they go into the fixture off the back of a 29-21 defeat to Sale, director of rugby Jim Mallinder still saw plenty of positives from his troops at Edgeley Park.
"We had a good first hour at Edgeley Park and we will be looking to build on that at Sixways," he said.
"At the same time we will need to put into practice the lessons we learned from the last 20 minutes of that game at Sale. We need to maintain our focus, impose our game plan, work with the referee and keep control over what we're doing.
"Sixways is a tough place to play and Worcester have had a promising start to the season. Richard Hill has put together a squad that is full of power and experience as well as pace out wide that can potentially cause us problems.
"But the reaction from the players has been good this week. Everyone has pulled together, worked hard in training and are determined to get a positive result tomorrow evening."
As for the visitors, scrum-half Lee Dickson makes his first start of the campaign alongside Stephen Myler, with Ryan Lamb amongst the replacements.
Worcester: 15 Errie Claassens, 14 Marcel Garvey, 13 Alex Grove, 12 Dale Rasmussen (c), 11 Miles Benjamin, 10 Andy Goode, 9 Shaun Perry, 8 Chris Jones, 7 Jake Abbott, 6 Neil Best, 5 Craig Gillies, 4 James Percival, 3 Tevita Taumoepeau, 2 Ed Shervington, 1 Matt Mullan.
Replacements: 16 Ceri Jones, 17 Chris Fortey, 18 Oliver Tomaszczyk, 19 Adam Balding, 20 Matt Kvesic, 21 Ollie Frost, 22 Joe Carlisle, 23 Tom Arscott.
Northampton:15 Greig Tonks, 14 Paul Diggin, 13 Jon Clarke, 12 James Downey, 11 Scott Armstrong, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson, 8 Phil Dowson (c), 7 Ben Nutley, 6 Calum Clark, 5 Christian Day, 4 Samu Manoa, 3 Brian Mujati, 2 Brett Sharman, 1 Paul Doran Jones.
Replacements: 16 Mike Haywood, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Tom Mercey, 19 Mark Sorenson, 20 James Craig, 21 Martin Roberts, 22 Ryan Lamb, 23 Tom May.